Flintface: Musician with a mission plays at State Theatre

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Recording artist Flintface, aka Joe Scorsone (left) brings his touring band to the State Theatre in Easton on Saturday for the #TAKEBACKYOURVOICE concert. The band has several missions, including empowering young people, and has arranged for high school performers to open the show.

Recording artist Flintface, aka Joe Scorsone (left) brings his touring band to the State Theatre in Easton on Saturday for the #TAKEBACKYOURVOICE concert. The band has several missions, including empowering young people, and has arranged for high school performers to open the show. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

Jennifer MarangosSpecial to The Morning Call

The State Theatre hopes to show will become an annual event like the Freddy Awards.

Sometimes all you have to do is ask. And, sometimes when you do, amazing things can result.

That's what happened when recording artist Joe Scorsone, aka Flintface, asked Shelley Brown, president of the State Theatre, whether his band could perform at the Easton venue.

Like Flintface, the Saturday Oct. 17 Flintface #TAKEBACKYOURVOICE concert is about a lot more than music.

The 36-year-old Scorsone is a musician with a mission. Known for spreading the message of anti-bullying to high school audiences, Flintface is now focusing his musical talents on "encouraging young people to stand up for themselves and embrace who they are and be empowered."

Flintface's concert series is the group's current thrust for what has always been music with a social message.

"A lot of people feel like they have lost their voice at some time," Scorsone says. "Everyone feels like a reject, at some point. In the past we have talked about suicide, bullying. It's great to address issues, but it is not cool to exclude people who didn't experience a specific challenge like sexual abuse or bullying.

"The message is that no matter who you are, you can take back your voice. If you have a voice, you can stand up to bullies. For our audiences, the music is a positive outlet for that voice and the feelings they are having."

The Easton #TAKEBACKYOURVOICE concert offers a twist dreamed up by Scorsone and Brown — a contest to allow local teen musicians to compete for the chance to become opening acts for Flintface.

"The idea of working with teenagers and teens finding their way is very, very appealing to us," Brown says. "We came up the idea right at that initial meeting. We sat down and tried to come up with something that sounded like fun."

The contest included an online application submitted via the State Theatre website, a performance video uploaded to YouTube and a live audition by the top candidates at the theater on Sept. 24.

Originally the plan was to select two high school performers to take the stage with Flintface.

But plans can change.

Scorsone was so impressed by the high school talent that he and the team at the State Theatre decided to tweak the format of the show so that everyone who tried out would be given the opportunity to perform.

"We are not rock stars," Scorsone says. "We said, 'It is not our show, it is your show.' We are all equals. There are no rock stars. I am excited. The concept is to encourage young artists. We want everyone to be empowered to express themselves, rather than internalize and become self-destructive."

In the end, eight musicians auditioned for Scorsone, and all eight will take the State Theatre stage. The School of Rock will perform a 5:30 p.m. preshow in the Easton Hospital Gallery. Flintface was looking for a chorus to back him up on one of his numbers, which led to the involvement of the North Hunterdon High School Choir.

It was Flintface's #TAKEBACKYOURVOICE message that motivated "Beautiful Oblivion," a five-member all-girl country music band, to take part in the contest. Three of the five band members will perform with Flintface.

"Well it's not every day that we would get an opportunity to perform at the State Theatre," says Anita Lear, mother of the group's founder, 15-year-old Victoria Rose Lear, who attends Southern Lehigh High School. "But more important than that, the girls all liked the message behind #TAKEBACKYOURVOICE."

Each one of the girls in the group is very different, Lear says. They all attend different schools, and music is their connection. Had it not been for music, most likely they would not have met and become friends.

"High school can be tough, and often times girls do not support each other," Lear says. "The girls care about each other and want to be there for one another. To them #TAKEBACKYOURVOICE means be proud of who you are, and to have the courage to make a difference."

In a way, the opportunity to take part in the Flintface concert helped Saucon Valley High School junior Abby Illingworth to reclaim her voice. The self-described "acoustic style" musician who hopes to one day study music education in college says she learned about the contest from her mother.

"I thought it was a sign to be quite honest, because recently I had a big audition for something else and it didn't go all that well," she says. "And then this came along and I knew I had to take this opportunity. I saw this as my chance to do something bigger than what I'm used to."

Scorsone says he, too, reached a place in his musical career when he was forced to find a way to take back his voice. That followed his brother Anthony Scorsone's exit from what had until that point been a musical metal duo.

Anthony amicably left in 2006 to pursue other interests. That left Joe Scorsone floundering for a bit as he tried to figure out what was next. He was forced to cancel concerts, lost his place to live and found himself sleeping in his car.

The duo had been touring under the name Flintface. It was during these struggles that Joe adopted the name Flintface as his own. The name is taken from a Bible passage — Isaiah 50:7 — that reads: "I will not be disgraced. Therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame."

Brown says she'd be thrilled if the Flintface concert was a resounding success and became an annual event — perhaps evolving into the music version of the annual Freddy Awards held each year at the State in recognition of outstanding achievements in local high school musical theater.

Proceeds from #TAKEBACKYOURVOICE will benefit the Freddys.

"There is nothing that we would like more than to have a theater full of teenagers," Brown says. "It is the best when you have kids in the theater, and kids with something in common is even better."